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Authors: Margarita Engle

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BOOK: Tropical Secrets
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I have only a few coins
sewn into a secret place
inside my heavy, itchy coat,
but my parents warned me
that I will need
that little bit of money
no matter where I end up,
so I must let the sailors spit.

 

I keep telling myself
that if I ever reach New York
or any other safe place

 

I will look back on this day
of heat and humiliation
and none of it will matter
as long as I am free
to play music
and to believe
that I still have a family
somewhere.

 

PALOMA

 

When I overhear my father's secrets,
I understand—
any ship turned away from Cuba
will have no place to go,
no safe place on earth.

 

Those ships will return
to Germany,
where all the refugees
will suddenly be homeless
and helpless
in their own homeland.

 

My father thinks it is funny,
a clever trick
the way he sells visas
to enter our small island nation
and then decides
whether the people
who buy the visas
will actually be allowed
to land.

 

DANIEL

 

Land!
Solid ground,
the firmness of earth
beneath my shoes,
even if it is just a filthy street
crowded with beggars
wearing strange costumes

 

and people
of all different colors
mixed up together,
as if God had poured out
a bunch of leftover paints
after making brown rocks
and beige sand. . . .

 

PALOMA

 

Drumming . . .
someone is drumming
on our front door. . . .

 

It's the sound of a vendor
knocking at the door
and singing in Spanish
with his raspy Russian accent,
singing about cold, sweet ice cream,
vanilla in a chocolate shell,
like some sort of odd sea creature
from the far north.

 

Papá would be furious
if he knew that I am a friend
of the old man who sells ice cream
door to door.

 

Papá would be angry
not only because Davíd
is poor and foreign
but also because he is Jewish,
a refugee who came to Cuba
from the Ukraine
long ago.

 

I open the door
and greet Davíd.
I buy the cold treat quietly—
whispering is a skill I have learned
by watching my father
make his secret deals.

 

PALOMA

 

The next singing vendor
who comes along
is a Chinese man selling herbs
and red ribbons to ward off
the evil eye.

 

I buy one strand of protection
for each of my long black braids
and a third for the dovecote,
my castlelike tower
in our huge, forested garden—
the tower where I feed my winged friends,
wild doves who come and go as they please,
gentle friends, not captives in cages.

 

Even bright ribbons and cold ice cream
are not enough to make me feel
like an ordinary twelve-year-old girl.

 

I feel like a fairy-tale princess
cursed with deadly secrets
that must be kept silent.

 

DANIEL

 

Hundreds of refugees
crowd into the central courtyard—
an open patio at the heart
of an oddly shaped Cuban house.

 

I am not accustomed to buildings
with trees and flowers at the center
and a view of open sky
right in the middle of the house
where one would expect to find
a stone fireplace
and sturdy brick walls.

 

Brown-skinned Cubans
and a red-haired American Quaker woman
take turns trying to give me
new clothes made of cotton,
but I refuse to take off
my thick winter coat.

 

I find it almost impossible
to believe that I will ever
see my parents again,
but at the same time
I secretly remember
their dream
of being reunited
in a cold, glowing city.

 

I don't see how I can survive
without that tiny sliver of hope,
my imaginary snow.

 

DANIEL

 

A friendly old man
gives me one ice-cream bar
after another.

 

He says he had to flee Russia
long ago, just as I have fled Germany.

 

He tells me he understands how I feel—
I am certain that no one
could ever understand,
but he speaks Yiddish
so I shower him with questions.

 

He tells me his name is David
and that over the years
he has grown used to hearing his name
pronounced the Spanish way—Davíd,
with an accent on the second syllable,
like the sound of a musical burst
at the end.

 

I promise myself that I will never
let anyone change the rhythm
of my name.

 

DANIEL

 

Two days later, I am still wearing
my heavy coat.

 

The old ice-cream man tells me
that I will have to stay here in hot, sweaty
Hotel Cuba,
so I might as well remove
my uncomfortable clothing.

 

It takes me a while to figure out
that David is joking.
I am not really in a hotel
but in some sort of strange
makeshift shelter for refugees.

 

The ice cream is charity,
my melting breakfast
and messy dinner.

 

DANIEL

 

A girl with olive skin and green eyes
helps David pass out festive plates
of saffron-yellow rice
and soupy black beans.

 

The girl has wavy red ribbons
woven into her thick black braids.
She glances at me, and I glare back,
trying to tell her to leave me alone.

 

The meal is strange, but after two days
of ice cream, hot food tastes good
even in this sweltering
tropical weather.

 

My coat is folded up beside me.
I am finally wearing cotton clothing,
cool and comfortable,
a shirt and pants donated
by strangers.

 

What choice do I have?
I still cling to my dream
of a family reunion
in snowy New York,
but in the meantime, here I am
in the sweaty tropics,
struggling to breathe humid air
that feels as thick as the steam
from a pot of my mother's
fragrant tea.

 

DANIEL

 

The girl asks me questions
in Spanish

 

while the ice-cream man translates
into Yiddish.

 

Back and forth we go,
passing words from one language
to another,

 

and none of them are my own
native tongue, Berlin's familiar
German.

 

Still, I am grateful
that Jews in Europe
all share Yiddish,

 

the language of people
who have had to flee
from one land to another
more than once.

 

DAVID

 

I am glad that I have plenty
of ice cream and advice
to give away

 

because what else can I offer
to all these frightened people
who are just beginning to understand

 

what it means
to be a refugee
without a home?

 

DANIEL

 

David says that removing my coat
was the first step
and accepting strange food
was the second.

 

Now, he wants me to plunge
into the ocean.
Others are doing it—
all around me, refugees wade
into the island's warm
turquoise sea.

 

David insists that I must learn
how to swim, if I want to cool off
on hot days.

 

He speaks to me with his hands dancing
and his voice musical, just like the islanders
who sound like chattering
wild birds.

 

I find the old man's company
comforting in some ways
and troubling in others.

 

He is still Russian, still Jewish,
but he talks like a completely
new sort of person,
one without memories
to treasure.

 

DANIEL

 

The city of Havana is never quiet.
Sleep is impossible—there are always
the drums of passing footsteps
and the horns of traffic
and choirs of dogs barking;
an orchestra of vendors singing
and neighbors laughing
and children fighting. . . .

 

Today, when I ventured out by myself,
one beggar sang to me
and another handed me a poem
in a language I cannot read,
and there was an old woman
who cursed me because I could not
give her a coin.

 

Some words can be understood
without knowing
the language.

 

I lie awake, hour after hour,
remembering the old woman's anger
along with my own.

 

DANIEL

 

Perhaps it is true,
as my father used to say,
that languages
do not matter as much
to musicians
as to other people.

 

My grandfather was always
able to communicate
with violinists from other countries
by playing the violin,

 

and when a French pianist
visited our house, my parents spoke
to him with sonatas,

 

and when an Italian cellist
asked me a question,
I answered him
with my flute.

 

DANIEL

 

All I want to do is lose myself
in dreams of home,

 

but the Cuban girl who brings food
keeps asking me questions
in Spanish.

 

I try to silence her
by drumming my hands
against the trunks of trees and vines
in the courtyard
of this crazy,
noisy shelter.

 

My impatient rhythm is answered
by cicadas and crickets.

 

If I could speak Spanish,
I would remind the girl
that I am not here in Cuba
by choice.

 

I have nothing to say
to any stranger who treats me
like a normal person
with a family
and a home.

 

DANIEL

 

Weeks at sea
introduced me to a new
kind of music,

 

endless and constant,
sung by a voice of air and water,
a voice of nature so enormous
that it can be ridden by humans
in tiny vessels—
our huge ships as small as toys
from the point of view
of an ocean wave.

 

There was also the music
of moaning masses—
babies shrieking, mothers weeping,
and sailors howling
wolflike

 

as they sang
their hideous
Nazi songs.

 

DANIEL

 

The girl gives me an orange.
I cannot bring myself to eat it
because, at home, oranges
are precious.

 

One orange was a treasure
in Germany, in winter.

 

My mother would place the golden fruit
at the center of our dining-room table,
and we would gather around
to gaze and marvel,

 

inhaling the fragrance
of warm climates
like that of the Holy Land.

 

DANIEL

 

The orange in my hand
looks like a sun
and smells like heaven.

 

I cannot believe my ears
when David tells me to peel
the radiant fruit
and eat all the juicy sections
by myself.

 

He says there are so many
oranges in Cuba
that I can eat my fill every day
for the rest of my life.

 

I glare at David,
hoping he will see
that I am different.

 

I am not like him.
I have no intention
of giving up hope.

 

I will not spend my life
here in Cuba
with strangers.

 

I close my fist
around the orange,
refusing to swallow
anything so sacred.

 

PALOMA

 

Germans were in my house last night.
Not refugees, but the other Germans,
the ones who cause all the trouble
that forces refugees to flee.

 

Papá made me stay in my room.
He sent all the servants home early.
He did not whisper
but spoke in his loud, laughing voice,
the one he uses when he knows
that he is getting rich.

 

I sneaked onto the stairway
and heard a few fragments
of the German visitors' plan,
something about showing the world
that even a small tropical island like Cuba
wants nothing to do
with helping Jews.

 

EL GORDO

 

Business is business.
Why should I care
about Nazis or Jews?

 

I find money for my fat wallet
any way I can.

 

Business is busyness.
A busy life wards off the evil eye
of sadness.

 

My daughter knows nothing
about business or evil eyes.

 

She's just a child
who hides in a tower
with wild doves.

 

DAVID

 

The radio and magazines
are filled with hateful lies.

 

Cuba's newspaper pages are covered
with ugly cartoons about Jews.

 

Where do the lies come from—
who dreams up the insults
that make ordinary people
sound like beasts
and feel like sheep
in a forest
of wolves?

 

DANIEL

 

Today, a ship
left Havana Harbor.

 

Desperate relatives
of the people on the ship
rowed out in small boats,
calling up to the decks
where their loved ones
leaned over the railings,
reaching. . . .

 

One man hurled himself
overboard.

 

Was he trying
to drown himself,
or was he hoping
that he could somehow
swim to shore?

 

I picture the German sailors
laughing, and spitting in faces
while they point to the posters of Hitler
in the dining room.

 

I feel the terror
of the refugees
as they realize

 

that they are being sent back
to Europe.

 

DANIEL

 

Where will the ship go?
What will happen to refugees
who find no refuge?

BOOK: Tropical Secrets
5.47Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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